Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Religious leaders in Assisi praise Patriarch Bartholomew as a great ecumenist

As leaders of dozens of religions gathered in Assisi for dialogue and
prayers for peace, they honoured Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew of Constantinople as an exemplar of one who is so deeply
rooted in his own religious tradition that he can reach out to others
without fear.

Jewish, Anglican and Catholic leaders paid tribute to Patriarch
Bartholomew as he was about to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his
enthronement as spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.
Pope Francis was scheduled to participate in a celebratory luncheon for
the patriarch on September 20 in Assisi.

The Assisi celebrations on September 18-20 were organised by the
Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio, the Diocese of Assisi and the
Franciscan friars.

In a formal meeting hall at the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi on
September 19, the leaders praised Patriarch Bartholomew as an ecumenist,
theologian and leading religious defender of God’s creation.

Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury presided over the
tribute to the patriarch, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, former president
of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, gave the main
talk, highlighting how “with great tact in difficult situations” the
patriarch “always helped to overcome complicated twists and turns with
the grand dexterity of a ‘pontiff,’ that is, a builder of bridges.”

“Like you,” Cardinal Kasper told the patriarch, “we are certain
that unity is a command of the Lord and a response to the signs of the
times in a world that is increasingly united, but at the same time
profoundly lacerated by many conflicts.”

The unity Christians hope and pray for, he said, will not be the
result of “any absorption, or watering down or homogenisation, but a
unity in reconciled diversity.”

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of interreligious affairs
for the American Jewish Committee, told participants, “There is an
understandable but regrettable tendency among those who are deeply
rooted in a religious tradition to be insular and exclusive in their
world outlook. While on the other hand, all too often those who are more
open to engagement with those different from themselves reflect a
superficiality lacking substance.”

The biblical model of excellence, though, is of “a luxuriant tree,”
the rabbi said. It is the image of “one profoundly rooted within his own
heritage and yet whose branches reach out as widely as possible
providing fruit for all.”

Saying that Patriarch Bartholomew is such a man, Rabbi Rosen praised
the patriarch’s leadership in condemning all violence in the name of
religion and in addressing the issue of climate change and care for
creation.

“His leadership in the environmental movement, long before it became
fashionable, is a reflection of his sincere and genuine care for the
cosmos as a whole,” he said.

Saying he was humbled by the tributes, Patriarch Bartholomew jokingly
told the crowd present, “Don’t believe everything you hear!”

The patriarch said that while he was touched by the words of those he
has collaborated with and admired, his work “resembles only a drop of
water in an ocean of human pain and global suffering.”

“We do not rejoice without at the same time recalling and sharing in
the suffering of others. And, at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, we
certainly never experience joy without remembering that we embody a
tradition that has known both glory and martyrdom through the ages,” he
said.

The celebration serves only as an affirmation “that the bishop, too,
is a child of God and a son of the Church,” the patriarch said.